High Speed! Volume 2

Chapter 7: Limit

Sano Middle School is at the third station away from Iwatobi, by riding the train that only comes twice an hour. Although it's within the same city, both the scenery and the air were totally different on the mountain side. Leaving the station, a hill road with a steep slope suddenly appeared, konara oaks and maples were growing thickly on both sides, trying to close in. The birds' chirping is noisy enough to be harsh to the ear. The white-eyes, nightingales and the like were one thing, but besides that, sparrows and difficult to distinguish small birds were restlessly crossing between the trees.

"Hey, Zaki-chan."

Makoto asked Aki, while climbing the hill road with the sunlight filtering through the trees onto it.

"What happened to Yazaki-senpai today?"

Now that he said it, Haruka noticed, too. Shouta's figure wasn't among the Iwatobi Middle Swim Club walking on the hill road in a line.

"......Yeah."

Unusually, Aki hesitates to say.

"He was at practice yesterday, wasn't he? Is he feeling sick or something?"

The meddlesome Makoto is attempting to poke his nose into something unnecessary again. It's always Haruka who's struck by the chance blow.

"Well, Onii-chan got banned from club activities......"

"Eh?"

Surprised, Makoto gasps. Haruka looked at Aki's face without thinking, too. Could it be the fault of the 'one-to-one fight'?

"After practice ended yesterday, it seems that Onii-chan swam in the Musogawa."

The Musogawa is a class A river [specified waterways of special importance protected by the government] that flows from Kuragakeyama into the sea. It's pretty wide and since it's abundant in water quantity, it's also well known as a body of water that forms a diverse ecosystem. However, if there's even just a small amount of rainfall, that abundant water quantity proves to be its ruin and the water level rises right away, so swimming in it has been prohibited for quite a while. Since several rivers are confluent with it, it isn't rare for it to change into a turbid current in the blink of an eye, either.

"And so, it became a big enough commotion for the police to come running, the school summoned our parents, he got banned from club activities for three days and suspended from the next tournament......"

"Why, in a place like that......"

Makoto can't continue. He realized that it's a foolish question. There could only be one reason.

"I think he was being impatient. But it's not Nanase-kun and the others' fault, you know. Really, don't worry about it. It's just that Onii-chan did as he pleased, he was impatient and did something stupid. In the first place, he's been like that from way back. Always ordering people around, he acts all self-important right away. Just because he can swim fast, even though it's nothing that great at all......"

Even without hearing it from Aki, they would've found out about it eventually. That's why Aki tried to let them know as softly as possible beforehand. So that Haruka won't feel responsible. Believing that that's her duty as his little sister, she just carried it out.

However, no matter how she tries to phrase it, no matter how she tries to patch it up, this fact can't be changed.

––Haruka had cornered Shouta.

He's glad that he got to hear it from Aki's mouth. Glad that he got to hear it not from anyone else, but from Aki. Aki's feelings, who was thinking of her older brother, got through to him properly from those words. That's precisely why they have to face each other. As long as that exists as fact, even if he tried to run away, even if he tried to evade it, it would be the same thing. Remaining within Haruka, now that it has taken root, he has no choice anymore but for them to face each other.